


Remember to Breathe

by sugarboat



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bill's a creep, Blood and Gore, Dubious Consent, M/M, Other, Unhealthy Relationships, Unsafe surgical techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-12 23:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7953520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarboat/pseuds/sugarboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's more than one way to crack an egg. The egg, in this instance, being a stubborn human's metal-lined skull.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You know, Fordsy, I really DIDN’T wanna have to DO this to you.” That was a lie, at least partially. Sure, it would have been just swell if Bill had been able to coax his little pet into playing along, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t going to enjoy himself immensely either way. “I wanted us to be PARTNERS – FRIENDS – like the GOOD old days! Surely YOU remember!”

The two large, black hands of his center piece were clasped around Ford’s sides, the fingers arranged in awkward looking angles to dig their jagged tips into his skin. The pain didn’t deter his human’s frantic thrashing, and Bill’s eye was curved with delight as he watched his pathetic struggling, as every movement carved new, ragged lacerations into his body. Both of them had to know by now that any attempt at fleeing or fighting back was futile, but hey, if it kept things entertaining Bill wasn’t about to stop him. 

Ford had long since stopped talking, preferring to glare balefully at his captor in lieu of actual conversation. Maybe Bill had ripped his tongue and teeth out one too many times, but he always put them back. Or perhaps Ford was sick of going to sleep with a broken jaw. Personally, the demon kind of liked it when Ford’s well-defined jawline was crushed on one side, inflamed and mashed tissue disrupting the symmetry of his face. Regardless of the root cause, the whole silent suffering, martyred hero complex was old news. Bill was bored, which meant they got to move on to the meat of their relationship issues.

From his upper plane, he stretched out another hand, clasping it around the back of the human’s skull, forcing Ford to crane his neck back and stare directly into his glowing eye. Bill dragged him closer too, for a moment just watched the shifting technicolor display of his energy light up Ford’s skin in a bright array, reflecting nicely against the pallor of the man’s clammy skin. Really, Ford would look better if he got out a bit more, and Bill would love to let him, but that would take some mutual cooperation of the kind his pet just wasn’t ready to give.

“Not even gonna ASK what it is I DON’T want to do to you? I PROMISE, the LIST is a short one!” Bill gave him a quick wink, struggling not to giggle at the low growl that reverberated from the man’s throat. “It’ll be BETTER this way anyway – no sense in RUINING the SURPRISE!” Darting forward, his bottom pair of hands grasped onto Ford’s legs, pulling them apart and stretching them taunt. A deep red blossomed from his chest to his face, and then Bill did laugh, rather unkindly. “Oh none of that YET, you FREAK you!” 

Instead, Bill scraped a single claw down the side of his face, leaving a blazing line of irritated skin in its wake. Ford shuddered in his grasp. Conjuring up a thick, black tongue, Bill swiped it along the front of Ford’s body, the strong muscle wriggling against the bound human. His pupil constricted at the human sucking in a deep breath of air, Ford’s chest puffing out, ribs moving up and down beneath a thin layer of skin and fascia. The organ dissipated in dark clouds of smoke, his actions leaving a film of sticky saliva coating his pet’s exposed flesh.

“Getting DISTRACTED, are we? This is SUPPOSED to be a PUNISHMENT for you being such a stubborn sack of **WASTED GERMLINE TISSUE**!” His claws raked along Ford’s chest, his fingers dug deep bruises into the man’s legs. With his single free hand, he pressed the sharp end of a talon against Sixer’s hairline, in the middle of his forehead. “You think you’re pretty SAFE, right?” The seeming non sequitur had all of the human’s muscles tensing into hard knots. “I can TORTURE you to my HEART’S content, make all your SLEEPING hours a NIGHMARISH kaleidoscope of your deepest FEARS and REGRETS – and don’t get me WRONG, Fordsy, I LOVE doing all that and more – but you’ve been pretty TENACIOUS in your bull-headed REFUSAL of all of my GENEROUS offers!”

Bill tapped his claw firmly against Ford’s forehead, eye scrunching at the corners from the dawning fear slowly creeping in on his pet’s face.

“But I THINK you’ve made one FATAL assumption here.” Tap, tap, tap. A thin trickle of blood leaked down the slope of Ford’s forehead, down along his nose. “I WANTED you to come along WILLINGLY, but there are always OTHER OPTIONS!” 

Now Ford was shaking with an emotion Bill was intimately familiar with, had seen expressed in so many creatures across his long and destructive lifetime. It made his mouth water, his teeth sharpen. He thrust his claw forward, feeling it scratching along the fragile bones that made up Ford’s skull. In agonizing slow motion, Bill began to drag through his skin, the flesh parting and spilling the man’s blood, bright red and viscous, down his face.

“W-wait, Bill, y-you can’t-” Ford’s quivering words were cut off in a sharp gasp of pain as the demon abruptly hooked his finger into the shallow wound, running it up and down the incision, feeling something – tissue that felt like wet, soggy spider webs – break beneath his touch. As he burrowed his finger deeper, deeper along the curve of his skull, beneath the tenuous stretch of dermis and hair, there was a sudden bright, stinging pain that had Bill jerking his hand away, brow furrowed in annoyance. Ford cried out wretchedly.

“CAN’T isn’t what I want to HEAR now, Fordsy,” Bill said. He slid his finger back beneath Ford’s scalp.

A steady stream of pleas were falling out of his pet’s mouth now, and as much as Bill enjoyed hearing them, he’d learned that they were all empty promises. Sixer would plead and cry and even beg in the worst moments, when his gossamer-thin thread of dignity finally snapped, but he always managed to hold it together enough not to spill the only beans Bill cared about. The demon had even fallen for it a time or two, had called his games early with the thought that Ford would be able to appreciate his sympathy. Of course, being the ungrateful little maggot he was, Ford merely reacted like Bill had killed his kitten. Which, maybe the demon had, if Ford had adopted one during his return. He should probably ask. 

The tip of his claw scraped against the metal plate again, a sensation like a thousand tiny needles pricking him radiating up the length of his arm. Unpleasant, but if Ford’s facial expression was anything to go by, it was nothing compared to being on the other side of it. Bill was actually a little curious as to what that felt like, but he somehow doubted Ford would be able to articulate it at the moment. It seemed all the human was capable of was his simpering, two-faced groveling. Bill made a shushing noise as he began to slip another finger alongside the first.

“You sure know the way to a guy’s heart, I’ll give you that, Sixer! But there’s only ONE WAY out of this, and I’m willing to BET you know what it is!” Ford was still sporadically jerking in his grasp. Mostly, though, he was just trembling bodily, fists and jaw both clenched. What parts of his hair weren’t thoroughly soaked in blood were damp with sweat. And if Bill wasn’t mistaken – and he never was – the man was even crying. “EW, can’t you get your BODY FLUIDS under CONTROL? What’s the USE of your MEAT SACK if it doesn’t even keep your WET, SQUISHY parts under wraps?”

Ford didn’t seem capable of responding, and honestly, Bill didn’t really care. The two fingers that were slipping around along the human’s skull hooked to dig against the metal firmly screwed into Ford’s bones. His thumb traced the outer edges of the hardware, feeling against the rigid outline of it pressing back against the thin flesh of Ford’s head. When the tip of his finger ran along the end of it, Bill immediately curved his thumb, the sharp points of his claws scratching at the junction of iron and calcium. With the piece of metal in his grasp, he gripped tightly, pulling and tugging insensately at it. His pet’s body went taunt beneath his fingers and he yanked ruthlessly at it, earning himself a searing pain scoring up and down his elongated arm.

“It’s screwed on there pretty TIGHT, huh?” Ford was shaking so violently now that even his teeth were clattering incessantly against each other. It was a little distracting, especially when Bill needed to concentrate. “Can you STOP with the whole going-into-shock thing? I’ve BARELY even HURT YOU! Whoops.” His claws slipped off the hard edges of the metal, gouging through the flesh covering it as they skipped across its surface. “Okay, I KNOW what you’re thinking, Sixer, and that was my bad, but let’s be REAL HERE, that SKIN was gonna HAVE TO GO eventually!” Intentional or not, it really wasn’t the worst thing to have happened. 

Round two! Bill slid his fingers between the limp flaps of skin covering the metal plate, spreading them to put it fully on display. Stereotypically, Ford wailed like he was dying, followed closely by another round of babbling supplications, and apparently they’d circled right back around to Ford having an attitude, as some demands to be freed were sprinkled throughout. It was all a little garbled; Sixer must have bit his tongue sometime. A true professional, the demon didn’t let his pet’s actions dissuade him as he clamped onto the metal again, jerking and wrenching at the stubborn plate, even trying to twist his hand to get it to dislodge somehow. 

And it was really beginning to hurt. Whatever warding properties had been woven into it reacted every time Bill touched it. What began as pins and needles grew worse and worse, burning, searing, shocking up and down his limb, and even his main form crackled a bit at the exaggerated contact. Bill could feel his surface growing hot, turning a bright, angry red as he was rebuffed by a flimsy piece of garbage barely stronger than a piece of cardboard. Finally he let go ahead, eye narrowed in annoyance. He watched Ford heaving for breath for a few moments. 

“Well, genius? Any IDEAS?” Not that it was very likely Ford would be willing to chime in. Even when it would be in his best interest to work with Bill – as it would be now, would get that damn metal out faster and get all this over with – the human was as stubborn as they came. As encouragement, he loosened the death grip he had on Ford’s limbs, and gave him a little pet, taking care not to go over his fresh, gaping wound. Ford spat out blood at him.

“Man, Sixer, you just don’t know when to QUIT, huh?” Minimally invasive had been the original goal, but it didn’t seem that was going to fly anymore. Bill retightened his hold on the human and drew his claws close to the metal again. This time, he pressed them gently against the bone surrounding the plate, and slowly began to apply pressure. Any bravado on the part of his pet seemed to have been short lived, the mortal back to shaking and a stream of just one word – no – over and over again pouring out of his mouth. It didn’t take long for faint cracks to begin appearing along the bone, and Bill moved his hand around in a slow circle, methodically breaking Ford’s skull.

The area immediately encircling the metal was a network of hairline fractures. Bill paused briefly to observe it, poked the metal with one finger, eye curving when that section of the human’s bone moved slightly beneath his touch. Without further ado, he slammed his fingers into some of those little cracks, hooked them and ripped, and with a wet, tearing sound Bill had yanked the metal free, still attached to the portion of skull Ford had allowed it to be glued to. It burned in his palm, dripping with blood and squishy with whatever tissues had stayed connected to it. He opened his hand, eyeing it curiously, and brought his open hand in front of Ford’s face.

“Wanna see?” Bill laughed. He turned his hand so the plate slid right off his palm, landing with a heavy thud on the black, pulsating floor of his Fearamid. Carefully, he turned Ford’s head to the side, examining the raw, open hole he’d carved into the man’s skull. “Wow. Well I DEFINITELY prefer getting into your head METAPHORICALLY!” Hmm, maybe. It had been a little satisfying to rip that thing out so viscerally. He could even see part of Ford’s pink, wet brain.

And for the first time in almost thirty years, he could hear Ford’s thoughts as easily as he could his own. They were a bit sporadic right now, mostly focused on blinding pain and denial and something about brain damage, infection control, yada yada. Same old Sixer. Bill really wanted to dive right in, pluck the equation out and be done with it, but Fordsy probably did have a point. If he didn’t want a vegetable as a pet, some healing touch would have to be applied.

“What do you say, Fordsy? Ready for a FADE TO BLACK? It’s about time for a SCENE CHANGE, right?” Like the suggestion was all he’d needed, Ford’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, and his body went limp, the human thoroughly checked out from the waking world. For once, Bill left his dreams alone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Bill doesn’t need to directly interfere with his mind for all of Ford’s thoughts, waking and dreaming, to revolve around him. At first, there is blissful, empty darkness, an escape that flashes by in the blink of an eye. Then he’s falling – Crampelter must have pushed him, Stan wasn’t there – and then he’s lying in his mother’s lap, soothing hands brushing over his sore head; soft, comforting, cooing that she had never displayed before._

_And then he’s trapped, pinioned by hands, spread and pinned like an insect, another hand is reaching for him. His face is sticky, tacky. His head is ringing, reverberating with the hollow singing of sharp claws against metal, he’s being jerked around so hard he fears his neck will snap. Pain, blinding pain, the sickening, dull scrape of bone against bone, awful crunching noises so loud in his head, he’s going to be sick, his stomach is churning –_

_It’s not the pain – Bill has done worse to him. It’s the fear. The thought that this monster was going to crawl back inside him. It sets his limbs shaking uncontrollably. The one protection he thought he’d finally gained, about to be ripped away. Each time Bill stops tugging, insidious hope worms its way back into Ford’s thoughts. He can’t get in. It’s doused with one sharp crack. Some part of him doesn’t believe Bill will do this to him. Most of him just wonders why he didn’t do it earlier._

_He dreams of Bill ripping him apart, over and over again._

_He dreams of wheat fields burning and towers collapsing, and mountains that crumble in the distance._

_He dreams of his brother, of the kids, of Fiddleford._

_The Oracle._

_Bill._

_Bill.  
_

Bill watched as the human tossed and turned, wrestling his own personal demons; he was vaguely gratified to see how many of them wore his face in one way or another. Of course, it didn’t change the fact that the only person little Fordsy over there should be blaming was himself, but it was always nice to be appreciated for your work. After their impromptu play session, Bill had mended Ford’s skull, fresh as the day he was born - sans soft-spots - and plopped him down on the cool tiles of the suite.

It would have been simple to reach into the shell-shocked and shredded fragments of Ford’s mind to rip the pieces of the equation out, but Bill chose to wait. So much time – not that _that_ meant anything anymore – wasted, so much fun put on hold; the demon really wanted to savor finally getting his way, fully trampling the pesky mortal who thought he could stand against him. Ford had put up a decent enough fight, he supposed; really, Bill probably could have ended it a long, long time ago, but something about the human made Bill want to tear him apart slowly, force him to look at what his ego and his sniveling need for validation had cost him, had cost everyone he held dear.

If there was a deeper meaning to it all, Bill didn’t see fit to examine it. He did what he wanted, and that didn’t include introspection. His eye was fixated on Ford as the human finally began to stir. He held back a chuckle when the man’s freakish hands shot straight to his fluffy head, even before he’d dragged himself into a fully seated position. What a riot! Bill wouldn’t have even needed to remove that useless plate of scrap-metal to read exactly what was going through Sixer’s cunning little brain. 

“No DREAM, Sixer – not THIS time! Though I’m FLATTERED that you THINK about me enough for THAT to be an option!” With barely more than a spare thought, a glowing blue collar snapped around Ford’s neck, a long chain stretching from his prone position to Bill’s right hand. He allowed the line to lie slack as his pet slowly caught up to the situation.

“You personally invade my dreams to torment me, what do you expect?” Ford muttered caustically in response. There was a subtle tremor to his words, and his thoughts were cold enough to burn, nothing but fear, a panic attack away from full blown breakdown. It was the most Sixer had said to him in weeks, and it felt like a victory. 

“Not JUST your dreams.” Bill walked his fingers up a few links of the chain, slowly beginning to stretch it taunt. Ford gave a shudder, loathe to be near him. “But I’m GLAD you’re feeling TALKATIVE today! Finally seeing what RESISTANCE and MULISHNESS gets you?” Apparently not, as Bill lifted a rather detailed imagining of Ford ripping his eye out from the man’s mind. Well, well! Maybe he’d let him try.

“What do you want, Bill? You have the equation – you won.” 

“Oh, Fordsy, that doesn’t sound like YOU!” Bill said in feigned shock. The human glowered at him. “Giving up ALREADY? I thought you were the HERO of this sad little tale! Don’t you want to at LEAST beg me for your FAMILY’S lives?”

“I know better than to expect mercy from _you_.” Even when they were talking about his family, Ford somehow made everything about himself. The thoughts shifting through his head had briefly flashed to his family, but were now ringing echoes of the plate’s removal. Bill pulled the chain tighter.

“You always WERE a smart one! But I’ve got a SURPRISE for you!” The human went pallid, tense as a statue. “A GOOD one this time! I DON’T have the equation; not yet!” 

That seemed to really throw him for a loop. There was a derisive scoff, followed by an eye roll, Ford assuming he was just telling a stupid lie. But slowly confusion dripped in, and the painful splinter of hope, and dread. What more was Bill going to do to him?

“Why?”

“I want YOU to give it to me!” Bill laughed at the uncomprehending stare Ford leveled at him. “I know what you’re thinking – LITERALLY now – and yeah, I suppose I could SHRED your mindscape to SLIVERS and just get the EQUATION from there…” He gave the chain as sharp tug, the action causing Ford to spill over onto his hands and knees. “But I don’t WANT to!” 

A low, frustrated noise came from his pet, six-fingered hands clenching into fists against the cold floor. “What makes you think that I would give it to you now? I’ve endured everything you’ve been able to do to me – _nothing_ could ever make me help you again!” 

The demon kept pulling on the chain, the collar catching against Ford’s throat as the man struggled to rebel, threw his weight back to avoid coming any closer. The feeble resistance was similar to a gnat throwing itself into a window pane. Bill didn’t even need to use his other hand to yank hard enough to drag his reluctant pet forward.

“Things CHANGE, why do I have to keep telling you PINES that?” It was hard to keep his voice free of amusement as he watch Ford floundering. The human even tried to get up from the ground, but Bill materialized an extra hand that roughly pushed him back down. Finally getting the message, Ford grit his teeth, studiously keeping his furious gaze on the ground as he crawled forward. “Anybody ELSE getting some déjà vu here?”

Ford didn’t reply but Bill could see the tension shiver in his shoulder blades, in the rigid line of his spine. Of course he wasn’t the only one seeing familiar sights, though it was true that the last time Fordsy was crawling around on his hands and knees it had been a bit more consensual. And the human was certainly taking him time with all this, like he was enjoying stretching the humiliation out further. Bill gave short, harsh tugs of encouragement whenever he paused for too long, until the man was kneeling just in front of where he was seated, his body trembling minutely.

“I BET you’re thinking right now, ‘why Bill, my DEAR friend and LENIENT master, what could possibly have CHANGED?’ And you DO have a point! You’re KNEELING at my FEET like the obedient little DOG you’ve ALWAYS been!” Sixer made it too easy to push all his buttons, wearing his heart on his sleeve all the time. But despite all the uncharitable - and frankly, uncivilized – thoughts chasing themselves in circles through his head, Bill was sure he wasn’t about to fight back just yet.

“Is there a point to all this, Bill?” Ford ground out through clenched teeth. He lifted his head to glare directly at the offending creature, though Bill found it undermined slightly by the red flush that had yet to fade from his cheeks.

“There’s no point to ANYTHING, Sixer; I think I’ve told you THAT before, too!” Bill replied cheerfully. Playfully, he wound the glowing chain around his hand, slowly forcing Ford to shuffle even closer. With his free hand, he scratched at the stubble along Ford’s jawline. The man flinched heavily, wincing when the instinctive urge to flee caused him to jerk against his collar. “But YOU’RE the genius here, I’m SURE you can figure out what’s DIFFERENT this time around – you ALREADY said it YOURSELF!” 

Ford’s brow furrowed in sudden concentration, mind turning over their conversation. These were the kind of thoughts Bill preferred to see out of his pet. Revenge fantasies, however elaborate or well-earned, were boring, the stuff that anyone could come up with if tortured and tormented long enough. The analytical workings of Ford’s mind were some of the only worthwhile features of the man, as far as Bill was concerned, and even if their current puzzle was practically a no-brainer, it was enjoyable to see that part of him churning into motion again. 

The chain swapped hands, one moment coiled around his right hand and the next gone, freeing him to burrow his fingers in Ford’s hair, above skin and bone he had sliced, smashed, removed just hours ago. The action had its intended effect as Ford stiffened. He still looked confused, like the answer he’d come to didn’t make sense.

“The plate?”

“DING DING DING, we HAVE a WINNER!” Bright strobe lights sprouted from the slopes of his sides, a big ‘winner’ sign flashing in the air. Ford winced, eyes squinted like they hadn’t been prepared for such a garish display. It all vanished in an instant and Bill scratched against the human’s scalp, gently, eye curving at the shiver of fear, of pleasure that it provoked. Ford brought his hand up to Bill’s, desperate to make the strangely, falsely affection gesture stop.

“You’re insane if you think literally ripping part of my skull out is somehow going to make me more inclined to give you what you want.” Apparently feeling emboldened by sheer annoyance, Ford actually swatted at his hand. Bill laughed.

“Oh, come on IQ, think about it for, like, TWO SECONDS!” The demon ruffled his hair and then withdrew his hand, and with his left hand now pulled the man a little closer, halfway to having the human sprawled across his lap. Another good thing about Fordsy: he didn’t let the paralyzing fear that crawled up along his spine balk him for long. He must’ve learned how to compartmentalize on his multi-dimensional hitchhiking trip. “Okay, I’ll make it SIMPLE for you – you LOST!” 

An ugly glare twisted up the man’s face again. It vanished hilariously quickly as his clothing suddenly unraveled around him, the loss of the protective layers prompting an almost visceral panic. “B-Bill! What are you-” The end of his question was muffled as a muzzle suddenly clamped around his jaw.

“If you’re not going to THINK for YOURSELF then DON’T interrupt!” One more sharp yank of the chain had Ford pitching forward, his hands coming up automatically to keep himself falling all over the demon, ending up with them pressed firmly against Bill’s surface. The muscles of his arms twitched as he tried to push himself away, but Bill held him there with hardly any effort. 

He gazed over Ford’s shaking shoulder, at the scratched out and faded remains of a tattoo that had once been an effigy. The tips of his claws ghosted over Ford’s taunt flesh, catching every now and then against the raised and ragged edges of scars, old and new alike. Ford shivered under his touch, breath coming out in short puffs against his surface. He stroked up and down the arched column of his back.

“The way I see it, Fordsy, is that this is GAME OVER for you! You had your FUN, you did your REBELLION thing, but it’s all OVER!” Bill could feel the rising tide of fear, sharp and biting, radiating off Ford’s mind, and he laid his palm flat against the middle of his back, over his own image. “It was a nice TRY, but there’s NOTHING left to FIGHT! Regardless of whether you YIELD now or NOT, I’m GETTING that equation!”

That muzzle had been a bit of serendipitous foresight. Whatever inane thing Ford was trying to say – and he sounded angry about it – was completed unintelligible. 

“Hey, I GET IT! You spent a long, long, long, loooong time fighting me. And you did MUCH better than MOST! But the ONLY THING standing between ME and the BEST PARTY this DIMENSION has ever SEEN is – WAS – you!” He lifted his hand from his faded symbol to Ford’s fluffy head of hair. “And without that PLATE, let’s FACE IT, there ISN’T A WHOLE LOT you can DO!” Ford fixed him with a glare, and Bill laughed. “Come on Fordsy, wake up and smell the FUTILITY!” 

Ford’s entire body twitched, shifting against him, bruising himself against the collar tight around his neck. Bill tightened his grip on his hair, pulled his neck back, enjoyed the sharp intake of breath his action caused. Ford’s eyes were burning points of anger, frustration, betrayal above the gold and white silk cloth of his gag. Within a blink, Bill’s eye flipped into a mouth, and his tongue slithered along the side of Ford’s face.

“You’ve been fighting for your dimension, your family, right?” He tugged Ford closer, and this time there was less resistance. “Well, it doesn’t MATTER what you do from here on OUT! Either way, I’M going to WIN!” Ford didn’t reply, and Bill could smell blood in the water, kept laving against his jawline, down the crooked column of his throat. “You could GIVE IN – right now! – and NOTHING would be different!

“And I KNOW you’re tired of fighting me,” Bill said. His eye had flicked back and he fluttered his lashes against Ford. “Tired of fighting for a bunch of people that don’t even LIKE you!” Ford flinched, his eyes closed. “An entire DIMENSION full of people who REJECTED you for, what? An extra FINGER? A BRILLIANT mind? And a family that NEVER saw you as anything more than a MEANS to an END!” The anger that had been radiating off of his pet was slowly being stomped out as Bill plucked all those raw nerves. It was difficult to keep from laughing.

“We’ve had some BAD TIMES recently, but there were GOOD TIMES too!” He stroked his fingers through Ford’s hair, let them intentionally brush over the missing plate. “With that PLATE gone and the EQUATION in HAND, I don’t NEED to hurt you anymore – and I don’t WANT to! I never wanted to, Fordsy, but you really didn’t leave me much CHOICE, did you?” A second pair of arms abruptly sprouted from his sides, encircling Ford in the closest approximation to a loving embrace Bill could muster. It seemed pretty convincing, if he did say so himself.

“I won’t even hold any of that against you! It’s all in the PAST now! I won’t HURT you again, and neither will ANYONE else – I’ll make SURE of that!” Bill had always found it weird how the human mind reacted to physical and emotional pain in nearly the same way. “All those people who would THROW you away JUST for being DIFFERENT, for being TALENTED – they don’t DESERVE your SACRIFICE, Sixer!” At that, finally, Ford made a muffled reply, the muscles of his jaw tensing between the strips of leather binding him. The muzzle vanished.

“Just take it,” Ford repeated, unable to even look at him. “The equation. You can have it.” 

And there it was, at last, sitting pretty at the top of Sixer’s thoughts, buoyed up on wave after wave of self-loathing and regret. Ah well, plenty of time to fix his pet’s emotional problems later. He could just scoop it up from there and be done, but Bill wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to be invited into his favorite mind. His psyche leaped out of his physical body.

“Bill! Wait!” Bill rolled his eye but paused his movements, looking down to the human. Oh, it was probably a little uncomfortable for Ford now that the form holding him in place was made of stone. 

“Just gimme TWO SECONDS, Fordsy! Don’t GO anywhere!” With that, he plunged into the man’s mindscape, and the starry expanse that greeted him seemed subdued somehow. Bill didn’t pay it much mind as the shining fragments of the equation coalesced, and jeez, it wasn’t even that complex. Probably could have figured it out himself if he hadn’t been so fixated on battering it out of his pet. It was more satisfying this way anyway. 

His mind was already racing with the possibilities. Finally, finally they could get this show on the road, really get the party started! Bill couldn’t wait to show this dimension a good time, to warp and bend and break it until it was the kind of disorderly mass of chaos someone could really be themselves in. He popped back into his body, laughing, and nearly dropped Ford in his excitement to get going.

“Whoa, almost LOST you there for a second!” Bill said, chuckling. Ford’s eyes were downcast, his thoughts a stuttering, swirling heap of self-derision. A little unusual coming from the man, but not unheard of. The hand still kept buried in Ford’s hair slid around to cup the back of his skull, and the extra pair holding onto the mortal slid up and down the broad planes of his back, blunted claws dragging against his skin. He gave the chain a short tug, just to remind them both it was there. “Hey, I think you deserve a reward, huh? For finally being the good pet I’ve always known you could be!”

Ford didn’t reply, but a small quiver that seemed to come from equal parts shame and pleasure rolled through his form. The fact that he was practically being ignored again was irking Bill just a tad, and it was kind of pathetic how Fordsy was wallowing in self-pity and disgust. Thankfully, Bill was decently confident that he had a surefire way to drag the human out of his boring emotional turmoil, and it started with dark hands, living shadows, dragging themselves out of the strange floor of the suite to firmly press against the meat of Ford’s inner thighs.

The human jerked spectacularly and Bill couldn’t help but to laugh. Ford’s entire body was tense, but the hands applied subtle pressure, slowly pushing his legs apart as they rhythmically squeezed the tight muscles in their grasp. If he wasn’t watching it happen before his all seeing eye, Bill wouldn’t believe that such a small action could provoke the, honestly, out of proportion response it gained. Ford’s heart was hammering in its bony cage, face bright red and eyes wide. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and Bill sprouted another arm just to have a spare hand to place one finger on the bottom of Ford’s jaw and hold it shut for him.

“Thought you weren’t in the MOOD to talk, Sixer!” His newest hand shifted positions a bit, holding onto his chin and maneuvering so his thumb could roughly drag a dull claw along the fleshy curve of Ford’s lower lip. “And I’m not going to MAKE you, even though BEGGING is the ONLY THING that smart little mouth of yours is good for!” Ford squirmed, but his tongue suddenly darted out to wet his lips, to lave against the digit still scratching at his mouth. Bill chuckled rather darkly, enjoying his complicity. “You don’t have to say anything at all, Fordsy; I already know what you want.”

Like a particularly unsettling field of flowers, more and more arms began budding from the floor, stretching like taffy or bending with sharp snaps into rigid angles to pet against his human’s flesh. One pair of hands with unnaturally elongated and thin fingers wrapped around Ford’s wrists, tugged his arms rather forcefully behind his back. Bill watched with rapt attention as Ford sucked in a sudden, quivering breath, the man’s entire body feeling heated underneath his innumerable hands. 

“Looking GOOD there, IQ!” Not exactly a lie, either. Most of those borderline depressing thoughts had been ruthlessly shoved away, and there had always been something appealing about the stark contrast between the pale expanses of Ford’s skin against the nightmare black of his own limbs. The way Bill could mottle and bruise him simply by applying the smallest bit of pressure. Tiny beads of sweat accumulating on his pet’s flesh, red, angry trails that appeared whenever his hands got just a little too eager with the claws – not that Ford seemed to mind. “But I THINK I see room for IMPROVEMENT!” 

Ford being himself, took the comment to mean something innate about himself, and Bill could literally feel the man’s embarrassment, trying to curl in on himself. The demon rolled his eye and sidestepped through reality, vanishing briefly and reappearing at Ford’s back. The various appendages directly connected to his body rearranged themselves, the hands that had been busy tracing various dimensions’ constellations across the map of Sixer’s back now raking down the man’s front side. 

Slipping his hand free from Ford’s hair, he lightly drew a straight line down the bumpy contour of Ford’s spine, from the back of his skull to the tip of the faded triangular tattoo, drawing another wave of prickling skin and twitching muscle from his pet. Bill tapped his finger against it, once, twice, and without much more warning sunk the tip of it into Ford’s skin, drawing a pained hiss from the human. Following the worn and damaged pattern, Bill carved his claw through the thin flesh of Ford’s back, the wound knitting neatly behind him. Instead of crumpled scar tissue, his actions left behind smooth skin, stained a deep black.

Bill took his time, enjoying the way the muscles along Ford’s back tensed and jerked. His various hands held the man tight, didn’t allow him to twist or squirm away from his attentions, the human’s breathing shallow and panting, particularly when his claw would skip over the hard bones of his spine. Blood still spilled out, hot and thick, during the brief intermissions that Ford’s flesh was split, and by the time Bill was on the upward slant back to the point, long trails of the sticky red liquid were running in meandering patterns down the length of Ford’s back, and had thoroughly coated Bill’s hands. With a flourishing flick of his wrist, Bill completed the triangle, his mass of hands spinning Ford around to face him.

“THERE! Perfect!” Ford’s face was all twisted up with the aftermath of pain, but his eyes opened and there was nothing short of hunger, devotion, wonder in his gaze; a look that briefly shot Bill back about 30 years. As much as Ford may love getting his ego stroked, Bill loved it more, and a look like that was nothing short of intoxicating, particularly considering the stubborn piece of shit it was coming from. His gaze traveled down the bound human’s body, over his heaving chest and the long, irritated marks his claws had scratched all the way down his stomach. Past the man’s half-hard cock and down to his still forcefully splayed legs, every inch of the man trembling with dread anticipation, with barely subdued wanting.

The hands across his body, which had grown still, began to move once more, and down the central line of each palm – what shrewd liars referred to as the “life-line” – the darkness split and cracked, lolling tongues and sharp teeth revealed nestled beneath the black approximation of flesh. They licked against his pet, nibbled at all those sensitive places that Bill remembered used to cause his human to unwind, and he wasn’t disappointed by the sudden, broken moan that slipped out between Ford’s lips when his hands lapped at the sensitive junction at his hips. 

One of his hands was still lingering along Ford’s jawline, as a joke Bill had it lick its way up the human’s chin, lave across the man’s lips, but to his utter surprise Ford opened his mouth, sucked the wandering tongue in, his soft lips moving eagerly against his palm. Bill’s energy briefly fluttering, the glowing light radiating off his form flickering. 

“Pretty DESPERATE, huh?” Bill murmured. He drew his hand away and came forward himself, and Ford’s mouth was immediately against him, that strangely squirmy and deft tongue running against the lid of his eye before he could even transfigure it. The demon caught up quickly enough, capturing Ford’s lips with a pair of his own, their tongues tangling and sliding together in meaningless, nonsense patterns. In the middle of it, Bill wrapped a hand around Ford’s cock, drinking his moan like it was water as yet another tongue licked against the man’s firm, hot flesh.

Bill pulled away, watched as Ford whimpered and groaned. His hands pressed bruises into the mortal’s skin, around his arms, his legs, against the curving ridges of his ribcage. Various mouths licked and bit and suckled purplish marks into his devotee. The hand wrapped around Ford’s cock, twisting and lapping – and nipping, causing Ford’s heart to stutter, his breathing to catch – would pause in its ministrations, and Ford’s hips would twitch forward, mindless in his need for continual stimulation.

His pet’s thoughts were scattered, needing renditions begging for more, and his own name was breathed on every shuddering exhale, every gasping inhale. Ford was getting close, he could tell in the building tension of his muscles, the single-minded pursuit of his own pleasure. Somehow, Bill had forgotten the overwhelming need Ford would get in the mindscape – the need to be close to Bill himself, to reciprocate the affections being lavished on him.

In the mindscape, the only thing holding Ford back from his deepest desires had been the man himself, and thanks to the symbol he’d just carved into the mortal’s back, the same was true now. It wasn’t enough of a dose of the reality-warping potential that Bill possessed to actually pose any sort of threat, but if Ford was able to gather himself together enough to harness it, it would manifest as abilities well beyond any mortal was capable of. And seeing as Bill hadn’t bothered to inform Ford that he was subtly infusing him with anything extra-dimensional, the demon had barely even bothered to process the idea of Ford utilizing it any time soon.

Of course, he wasn’t too full of himself to be incapable of underestimating another creature, and Bill had to admit that he may have done so to Ford when, with wet, tearing, crackling sounds brand new arms had suddenly split the flesh along the human’s ribcage, were darting forward and sinking claws – claws! – into his form and forcefully tugging _him_ closer, into range of Ford’s mouth that was licking against the slope of his side and then biting against him, his slim edge caught between the two rows of Ford’s teeth.

His energy leapt, the feeling – pain? pleasure? – not something that Bill had felt directly in over a millennia. There was the urge to pull away, to punish his pet for overstepping his boundaries so brazenly, as much as there was an urge to stay still, and see how much farther the mortal could go. Bill settled for pushing rather gently, encouragingly against the man’s shoulders, and found himself surprised yet again as Ford let out an animalistic growl, and surged forward, breaking free of his multitude of hands to literally pin his form to the floor.

The sharp talons of Ford’s new appendages had speared straight though his physical body, gouging deep ridges into the hard stone underneath him. Bill wasn’t concerned, wasn’t worried, but this wasn’t going exactly how he’d thought it would anymore. The chain was long since forgotten, dissipated when they weren’t looking, but the collar still glowed and hummed around his pet’s neck. Bill reached both his hands up, hooked them around Ford’s clavicles, cutting through flesh and muscle to hold onto the slim bones directly. 

Ford rutted against him mindlessly, the human’s cock, dripping precum, sliding against his front surface. It would have been hilarious if not for the twelve points of contact where his very form was breached. Still, with his two main hands, he urged the man onwards, pulled him closer, harder, rougher against him as the man rocked and groaned. 

Finally, suddenly, Ford cried out his name almost wretchedly, and Bill could feel some new slickness splatter against his form, across his front, and even some of it arched up into his eye, Bill letting go of the death grip he had around Ford’s collar bones to rub at the orifice. He let the sticklike black limbs drop to his sides and he stared at the panting human above him, every blink accumulating more of the milky, sticky fluid at the corners of his eye.

They were both silent for a moment, Ford hunched and twitching over top of him. Bill’s multitude of conjured hands slowly moved over to brush against the mortal’s flesh again, though they were cautious and gentle, exposing some hesitancy that existed in the demon’s mind. As always, Bill was the one who recovered first, and he blinked away to hover in the air again, the holes Ford had carved in his form quickly knitting.

“WELL! That sure was FUN, wasn’t it?” Bill said. He didn’t sound convincing even to himself. “But ENOUGH’S ENOUGH, time to get this PARTY on the ROAD!” 

He turned to leave, determined to deal with all this a little later, when he’d had some time to properly process all this muck. But a long, dripping red and sharp-clawed hand was suddenly around his edges, scratching against him, begging him to turn back, to come back to the half-ascended human he was trying to run away from.

Well. Bill had some time to spare anyway.


End file.
